August 24, 2019 UPDATE

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Newsroom, 24.08.2019, 19:14

SHOW Baneasa Airport in northern Bucharest on
Saturday played venue for the biggest air show in Romania, BIAS 2019. The event
was devoted to the celebration of 50 years of activity by the Henri Coanda
International Airport and 15 years since Romania joined NATO. The 11th
edition of BIAS included aerobatics and other feats of spectacular flying
performed by some of the 100 planes attending the show.

CANDIDACY About one thousand Social Democrats from the PSD, number one in
the government coalition in Bucharest, on Saturday convened in a congress to
launch the candidacy of Romania’s incumbent Prime Minister Viorica Dancila for
the presidential election in November. The country’s incumbent president Klaus
Iohannis has also announced his intention to run for a second term in office
with support from the main opposition party, the National Liberal Party. Dan
Barna, leader of the opposition USR-PLUS, will also run for the presidential
seat and so will Calin Popescu Tariceanu, leader of ALDE, part of the present
ruling coalition. Also during the congress, the PSD’s National Executive
Committee has also adopted proposals for the ministers the Prime Minister is going
to submit to president Iohannis on Monday. So, the party’s secretary general,
Mihai Fifor will be heading the Interior Ministry, Ana Birchall will become
Deputy Prime Minister for Strategic Partnerships while MP Iulian Iancu will be
Deputy Prime Minister in charge of economic affairs. Dana Girbovan had been proposed for the
Justice Ministry, but the move attracted a lot of heat from the opposition who
recalled that Girbovan was a staunch supporter of the justice reforms that had
been proposed by PSD and ALDE with the alleged intention to gain control over
the magistrates and hinder the anti-graft fight.

TENNIS Romanian tennis player Simona
Halep, the world’s number 4, will be up against US challenger Nicole Gibbs on
Tuesday, in the first round of US Open, the year’s last Grand Slam tournament. Four
Romanians are on the competition’s main draw. Sorana Cirstea will be taking on
Katerina Siniakova from the Czech Republic, Monica Niculescu will play Dayana
Yastremska while Mihaela Buzarnescu is pitted against Andrea Petkovic of
Germany. Another Romanian qualified, Ana Bogdan will meet Harriet Dart of
Britain. The only Romanian in the men’s competition, Marius Copil, will be
playing French Ugo Humbert.

PLEDGE Countries that suffered at the hands of the
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union have pledged to take action for raising
awareness about Europe’s totalitarian past, 80 years since the pact that
triggered WWll had been signed. Foreign Ministers from Poland, Lithuania,
Latvia, Estonia and Romania have said in a joint statement that the memory of
the victims prompts them to promote historical justice. On Friday, a day
devoted to commemorating the victims of Fascism and Communism, Romania’s
president Klaus Iohannis conveyed a message underlying that honoring these
victims should not be restricted to commemoration alone, but firm action must
also be taken in accordance with the principles of authentic democracy. The
head of the Romanian state went on to say that given the present-day attempts
to downplay the crimes of fascism and communism, firmly denouncing the two
ideologies is a must. Russia has this week made public what it believes to be
the pact’s original documents signed on August 23rd 1939, under
which Russia and the Nazi Germany pledged not to attack each other. The pact
also contained a secret protocol, under which the territories of other
countries were divided between the two powers. While Poland and the Baltic
states had been entirely occupied, Romania was forced by an ultimatum in 1940
to cede to Moscow its eastern territories, which today belong to the Republic
of Moldova and Ukraine.

(translated by bill)